Friday again

Well I don't know about anyone else but I think this years' 6-week holiday has gone much quicker than any other I've ever known! Why is that? It could be that my children are that bit older and that bit more independent so less reliant on me to provide round-the-clock entertainment for them which has allowed me a bit more time for myself? Maybe others have their own theories which I'd love to hear!

I've had a very creative week or two but a lot of what I've been doing is either over on my Magnolia blog or cannot be blogged yet because they're for publication. I do however have this tag to show that I made earlier in the week - it was inspired by something I saw on Silvia's blog who's work I absolutely adore and would love to have her style - if you've not seen her blog yet, how come?

You may have spotted that my stitching went a bit awry - that's because it was a last-minute decision to do the stitching and I obviously had too many layers to stitch through and my machine rebelled, LOL!! At first I cursed, then I decided that actually I quite like it, it fits in with the 'shabby' side of the shabby chic look I was trying to achieve. So undeterred I carried on with it and this was the result - there was great temptation to thread a needle and stitch it by hand, but then I decided life was too short for perfection!!! LOL!! The text, which is impossible to read here, says "Nobody knows what a boy is worth. And the world must wait and see; for every man in a (I know, should be 'an' - tut!!) honoured place, Is a boy that used to be" - sniff!! How true, and this is my own adorable young man who's honoured place for now is on my tag! LOL!

Thanks for stopping by! ;0) xx

Tag - Punch Art

Happy Friday folks - I tell you, the time is whizzing by way too quickly. I'm now officially in therapy in readiness for returning to work on 1st Sept. BOOOO!!!!!! :o( However, I shan't let it spoil my day - I'm all loved up today because me and my gorgeous bloke are celebrating our 10th Wedding Anniversary today....sigh!!! It was a fabulous wedding - we booked ourselves a holiday cottage in the West Highlands of Scotland for a week then hit upon the brilliant idea of stopping off en route at Gretna to 'tie the knot' at the Blacksmith's Cottage! Despite wanting to keep it just the two of us, my sisters and best friend put their feet down and were adamant they wanted to share our day so they all drove up from Manchester and Birmingham to spend the afternoon with us in the glorious sunshine and witness our marriage. Then we all ran around Gretna Village trying to find the place where I'd booked us lunch only to discover when we found it that they'd decided to give it to another wedding party who'd turned up 'on the offchance'!! LOL!!! You'd think it would put the dampers on it wouldn't you, but we just laughed it off and the Manager arranged a very quick buffet for us in under 3/4 of an hour and a piper played for us while we waited! It was the most perfect day!

I suppose all this was on my mind when I was making my tag for this week's Tag, You're It! theme which is hosted this week by the wonderfully gorgeous and grossly over-talented Deb Neerman who has chosen Punch Art as her topic. So pop over there and see what other delights there are in store, and if you have 10 minutes and a load of scraps of left-over paper to spare, why not bung them all together on a tag and join in the fun! Thanks for popping in and have a great day!

Sisters are doing it for themselves...!

Ooer! I've joined the Sisterhood of Blogging Stampers, and so far it's been quite painless ~ no flashing of the knees or nipples and definitely no dodgy handshakes! And apparently I'm in Group 23 (which is my birth date so that's quite apt!!) with (so far) 12 other lovely ladies - some I already know and the others I shall acquaint myself with soon! Now, as I type this, I believe there are 13 of us in this group which means there are places for 7 more new 'Sisters'. It would be fab if some of my lovely blogging buddies nab some these places because it would be great to share more space with you! I think at this point I'm supposed to share details about me - Eeek! What's there to say ~ I'm just me, Anne - I stamp, I cut and stick bits of paper together, bend bits of card and I think it's fair to say that I'm happiest when I have a paintbrush in my hand and some fab music blaring away behind me. I have been a member of the Magnolia Design Team for over 12 months and I am loving their stamps as much today as when I first discovered them about 18 months ago. I also like to make my own stamps which I show off on here from time to time. Well, that's the crafty me - the 'real' me is mum to two adorable little fella's, Missus to an adorable big fella, and chief to two fabtastic doggies!! So that pretty much sums me up ~ no doubt my 'sisters' will learn more about me in the fullness of time, as I hope to about them too! :o)

My Stamps

Am editing this because at the time I stuck it on here I was panicking because I was having so many problems with blogger and couldn't type much. However, it all seems perfectly in order again now and I want to link my tag to Theme Thursday's challenge blog which this week is all about Tags!

Ooer! I seem to be having blogger problems today - I keep getting gremlin messages and it's freakin' me out!! So I'm leaving this very short and sweet in case it all goes belly-up. This is a tag I made using one of my own stamps, I called it Nu Shooz because it's a pic of my youngest son's new shoes! Thanks for looking in - hope I'll be back :o{

Tag, Free Papers and a FAB award!

Friday already?? This week has just flown by, and yet so much has happened I can't remember the details! However, I have had some chance to play with my stash this week - not a lot I grant you, but what little time I did have, Oh Boy, was it fun!! I was sent these papers by Nat of Craft Buyer to give away on the Tag Challenge blog. The papers are called Allsorts and they are sooooooo luxurious. They are fabulous designs but the quality is just superb - they have a satin finish and are gorgeous to work with. Here is the sample tag I made - probably the quickest and simplest tag I've ever done. The papers are so gorgeous that I decided to let them do all the work for me!

If you fancy winning a pack of 36 of these 6"x6" papers, pop over to the challenge blog, make an untraditional shaped tag, link it to the blog and your name will go into the pot to be drawn at random, and the winners (for there are two of them!!!) will be announced next Friday! And don't worry if you're not one of the winners because very soon there will be another two packs of the equally gorgeous Christmas papers to give away, but that's another challenge ;o) LOL!!

I also have an enormous cry of gratitude to my lovely friend Dawn who has sent me THE most amazing award. This is the Wylde Women Award (isn't it just gorgeous!!!)

and here is what it's all about:

1. You can give it to one or one hundred or any number in between - it's up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.2. Link back to this blogsite (www.tammyvitale.com//) so Tammy can go visit all these wonderful women.and remember the Purpose of the Award: To send love and acknowledgment to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

So I decided that I'm going to use this award to send to all those lovely ladies that I used to be in regular contact with before I had to go out to work for a living!! One of the best things about working from home was that I was able to keep in touch more often. These are some of the ladies that I miss so much since my home job ended:

Elaine

Carla

Audrey

Deb

And there must be hundreds more, but blogger seems to be playing up today and it's already taken me 2 hours to prepare this much!!!! ARGH!

Hope you're all set for a fab weekend - I know I am!!! Thanks for popping by! :o) xx

Foiled again!

A real quick post from me today as I'm still mopping up the tears from this morning's Leaver's Assembly!!! WAAAH!!!! I was doing jus' fine till the children stood up and sang "Somewhere over the rainbow" and it just kicked in and the tears came rollin' down the cheeks, and the more you try to stop, the worse it becomes. Of course it didn't help having my son sat in front of me rolling his eyes because I'd probably embarrassed the heck out of him, but Hey, that's what being a mum's all about isn't it? If not, I've been getting it soooo wrong all these years! Anyway, here's my creative offering for the day - it's my tag for the Tag, You're It! challenge this week, the theme being Fairies. I used a set of the new Dovecraft fantasy stamps, and my favourite current 'ism' - hot foils - I can't stop foiling everything - I love it!! If you fancy a chance of winning a set of your own fairy stamps, just like the ones I used here, get over to the blog, play along with the theme and you're name will go into a hat to be drawn next week and the winner announced on Friday! Good luck everyone, and thanks for popping by! ;o)

Edited just for Penny: Here's the best close-up I could get that shows the foiling - it's quite tricky to photograph this stuff and show it off at it's best:

Y.ou K.now Y.ou R.ock!

This is a brand spanking new challenge blog which has been set up by Deb and Julie called Y.ou K.now Y.ou R.ock - check out the site and see for yourselves the story behind their venture, and take part in the challenge; "Take a look at the CD in your player. Check out the art on the cover and be inspired in some way! We're not going to be literal here. Just take an element that you like and use it in a card!"



So here's my interpretation. The album which is one of my most favourite's ever is Fleetwood Mac's The Dance (honest, I do listen to other stuff sometimes!! LOL!)

and here's the card:

Hmmmm..... seeing them side-by-side like this you're probably thinking "and...????" LOL!! Well, I don't do deep and cryptic - what you see it what you get - but I will explain my interpretation. I wanted to use only Pink Black and White as they're the colours that stand out most on the album sleeve. OK, it's not quite the same shade of pink but I can't afford a Set Stylist like they can so I had to make do with the closest I could find. The stamp, by Penny Black, is perfect for anything with a music theme but especially so here because of the piano keys. I didn't have any of Stevie's black lace so I improvised and used white. The quote "It's never too late to be what you might have been" couldn't have been more apt for this album as it was one of the last times the band ever performed together as a whole. I always think white pearls look classy, and they were added to pick out the classiness of this sleeve. Around the edge of the cello/violin??? I have added a touch of gold foil - despite their very checkered past I still think that the Mac's have an air of Regality (is that a real word??) about them, and that's represented by the gold foil. The broken heart is symbolic of the broken relationships within the band, both personal and professional. The actual album sleeve has an ethereal look about it which I recreated (ROFL!!!) using a bit of digi masking. So there you go, something I threw together without much thought!! LOL!!

Brilliant challenge girls - I cannot WAIT for the next one!! Thanks for looking in! ;o)